Pastor Ronnie Floyd, right, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, hugs Rev. Jerry Young, president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, after Young spoke on the issue of race during a meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention Tuesday, June 14, 2016, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

The Southern Baptist Convention has been closely associated with conservative politics for years, but at its annual meeting this week the nation’s largest Protestant denomination showed that its concerns are becoming more diverse along with its membership.

Where 20 years ago the convention voted to boycott Disney for promoting homosexuality, on Tuesday, delegates passed a resolution extending love and compassion to the victims of the recent shooting at an Orlando gay night club. The resolution also asked Southern Baptists to donate blood and offer other forms of support.

Southern Baptists haven’t changed their belief that sexual relations between same-sex couples are sinful, but it is no longer acceptable to denounce gay people. And many Southern Baptist pastors say they have gay couples in their congregations.

Although abortion is still a huge concern, this week racism was condemned with equal fervor. On Tuesday, delegates voted to repudiate the display of the Confederate battle flag. And they actually voted to strengthen the language of the resolution presented to them by a committee, deleting a sentence that said the flag is seen by some as a memorial to their ancestors.

That stance earned them a barrage of angry, racist comments on Twitter.

Later African-American Rev. K. Marshall Williams said during a panel on the church and politics that Christians need to pray not only for issues like abortion and marriage, but for an end to the school-to-prison pipeline that affects many young black men.

More than 7,000 delegates attended the two-day meeting in St. Louis of the Nashville-based denomination.

They included people like Jamal Bishara, pastor of the First Arabic Baptist Church in Arizona. He stood to oppose a resolution in support of Israel that criticized the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. His speech was applauded, although the resolution passed.

While Trump has advocated a ban on Muslims being admitted to the United States, Southern Baptists on Wednesday passed a resolution encouraging Southern Baptist churches and families to welcome and adopt refugees into their churches and homes.

Moore, who recently added the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission to a list of groups supporting the construction of a New Jersey mosque, was challenged by a pastor who asked how he could support the rights of Muslims who he said are threatening the existence of Christians and Americans. To applause, Moore said that support for religious liberty is at the heart of what it means to be a Baptist.

The Southern Baptist Convention was formed in a split with northern Baptists over slavery and is still about 80 to 90 percent white. But with 15.3 million members, that means it has at least 1.5 million members the denomination terms “non-Anglo.”

On Wednesday, delegates also voted to oppose efforts to require women to register for the draft, to encourage voting as an expression of Christian citizenship and to affirm “In God We Trust” as the national motto.

After preaching the Gospel every day for 367 days straight throughout the 2016 presidential campaign season, Daniel Whyte III is preaching the Gospel for 1,000 days during the Trump presidency. If you think a new president being in office is the only thing needed to save America and 'make America great again,' you are woefully deceived. The church must follow through and "keep the main thing the main thing: and that is reaching unbelievers with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and praying for their salvation, for the problem in America is not only disobedient presidents, politicians, and people, but disobedient pastors, preachers, and parishioners who have refused to obey the Lord's Great Commission which is to, 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,' and who have refused to obey God's repeated commands to 'pray without ceasing' for unbelievers, believers, and political leaders." So, we encourage you to pray for the new president, but not to get caught up in the political happenings like the world does. Nothing much is going to change until people get saved and get their hearts right with the Lord. And that is what this campaign is all about.

GLORY BE TO GOD! By the grace of God, over the past 40 years, Daniel Whyte III has preached the Gospel over 6,000 times to over 4 million people in over 25 countries personally, and nearly every country of the world online. In addition, Gospel Light Society International and GLM Omnimedia Group LLC have a network of over 1,000 Christian news sites which contain the preaching of the Gospel and Christian discipleship teaching in every country of the world and in every major city of the world. BCNN1 is a part of that network. Please click here to view some of those sites.